Narain was VERY highly rated as a youngster, the problem is that his carrear went of the boil and he never got the chances he deserved; as such i feel he went off the boil. At youngster level, team bosses oftern commented that Narain had more car controll than anyone. Perhaps not suited to single seaters, but a VERY talented driver.

My rating stats are for drivers alone, car-neutral. So if de la Rosa was in the Red Bull, he'd be 1.2% slower than Vettel. That is about 1.2 secs per lap which translates to about 72 secs behind in a 60 lap race, which could be about one lap on some circuits.

I don't consider this slow; PdlR is a very accurate,technically experienced driver, obviously had too much time out of racing in his career.

I think it is too easy for fans to slam anyone who is not absolute top, like Murray or Henman in tennis, or many 'number two' drivers in F1.

The top F1 drivers have always been so very competitive and competent, and they do get the most support from their teams, whatever anyone says; just psychological favouritism is an enormous help and confidence booster. The 'number-twos' are really up against it, as the usual win-rate discrepancies show; and those who get within 0.1 to 0.3 of their 'number-ones' as Webber,Button, Massa, Barrichello,Coulthard, etc have done, all the way back to the fifties drivers Brooks, Castellotti, Gonzalez and Farina, are really very good, and fast.

Back to the OP's topic: according to my ratings Narian in the 2012 Ferrari would finish a race only about one minute behind Alonso. Imagine being that fast against world-class drivers?

So many drivers have been downgraded by off-pace cars; one of the inspirations for doing my ratings system.

PS: the reason I have not divulged exactly how my ratings system works or is formulated, is that I have had some bad experiences with pro-journalists/publishers using some of my writings and analyses on GP racing.

I am not a professional author or journalist, this has been a lifelong hobby. I am working to publish my ratings.

Despite some believing that I just make up my stats on drivers, I will explain fully how the system works within tight boundaries for all figures, shown by the 1/100ths to which I work, my race-by-race tracking being done to 3 decimals, as demanded by the closeness of F1 performances, whether packages, drivers or cars.

I must say that the PF1 posters are a great source of knowledge: so many have such detailed and expert views. Wish I'd known about it and joined years ago.

Though he appears to struggle at times, I've little doubt in my mind he'd have been able to challenge the likes of Senna if he was born 20 years earlier. The man is one of the quickest things on four wheels. He's cool, calm and collected, hiding his fierce determination and mind-blowing ability behind an unassuming smile. If Vettel is only successful because of Red Bull's designers, then Karthikeyan is only unsuccessful because of the designers of the EJ15 and the F111 and '12 failing to meet competitive standard. One of the true losses to motorsport is that Karthikeyan never received a position in a top-tier team. The Vettel incident in Malaysia last year was caused by a clash of egos: two great men battling it out for the ultimate prize; two gladiators of the modern Colosseum vying for supremacy over the other. Unfortunately I fear that, much as with Senna and Prost, and Hamilton and Alonso, top teams have not yet hired Karthikeyan because of the likelihood of him upsetting the balance of power in their squad. He's a commanding figure and though the long-term gains may be bountiful, few teams can risk a championship or two now in order to try and win five in the hands of Narain. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes Narain Karthikeyan, the pride of India, will be back. The powers that be may believe they have finally rid the grid of this bad boy, but few obstacles can hold back the fastest thing this side of Delhi.

wow!

He has been consistently slower than every driver he has ever been paired with in F1. He has had plenty of races in F1 which gives him plenty of opportunities to prove himself. In my opinion he has acheived absolutely nothing, he did not even deserve the point(s) he scored in Indy 2005, he was way off his team-mate and just had to keep off the wall to not fall asleep at the wheel to avoid the Minardis behind him. I have every reason to support him, since he is an Indian and according to the records, the first one to score a point... but all I can think about when he comes on tv is how TATA is wasting their finances funding (what i hope is for the last time) his dead end pointless career, when they can use the same finances for better compensation to my friends who work for Tata's consultancy services ...

I came to this thread hoping to amuse myself with funny "How slow is Karthikeyan" jokes, but unfortunately this turned out to be a serious discussion... I personally think Kubica could come back with his semi-dysfuntional hand and still manage to beat Karthikeyan, he is slower than a wounded snail on gravel and is no fit in contemporary F1

A close field could also be a lack of talent, its only a relative measure.

Remove Schumacher from 1994-1997 and possibly even beyond and that is a pretty weak field with hindsight. Remove Schumacher and Damon Hill and Hakkinen would be talked about in the same breath as Prost, Senna, Fangion as multiple World Champions.

Fickle, funny old game.

1997 you had the emergence of Trulli, Fisichella, Ralf Schumacher, not too bad drivers.

A close field could also be a lack of talent, its only a relative measure.

Remove Schumacher from 1994-1997 and possibly even beyond and that is a pretty weak field with hindsight. Remove Schumacher and Damon Hill and Hakkinen would be talked about in the same breath as Prost, Senna, Fangion as multiple World Champions.

Fickle, funny old game.

1997 you had the emergence of Trulli, Fisichella, Ralf Schumacher, not too bad drivers.

My rating stats are for drivers alone, car-neutral. So if de la Rosa was in the Red Bull, he'd be 1.2% slower than Vettel. That is about 1.2 secs per lap which translates to about 72 secs behind in a 60 lap race, which could be about one lap on some circuits.

I don't consider this slow; PdlR is a very accurate,technically experienced driver, obviously had too much time out of racing in his career.

I think it is too easy for fans to slam anyone who is not absolute top, like Murray or Henman in tennis, or many 'number two' drivers in F1.

The top F1 drivers have always been so very competitive and competent, and they do get the most support from their teams, whatever anyone says; just psychological favouritism is an enormous help and confidence booster. The 'number-twos' are really up against it, as the usual win-rate discrepancies show; and those who get within 0.1 to 0.3 of their 'number-ones' as Webber,Button, Massa, Barrichello,Coulthard, etc have done, all the way back to the fifties drivers Brooks, Castellotti, Gonzalez and Farina, are really very good, and fast.

Back to the OP's topic: according to my ratings Narian in the 2012 Ferrari would finish a race only about one minute behind Alonso. Imagine being that fast against world-class drivers?

So many drivers have been downgraded by off-pace cars; one of the inspirations for doing my ratings system.

The major things that I think separates the best drivers from the 'not quite there' drivers are consistency and adaptability. When someone asks a question such as 'how slow is 'x'' I find it difficult to answer precisely because I don't think that the raw speed is the biggest issue in the equation. You talk about the 'number-twos' and I think they're a good example of it. Webber is almost as quick as Vettel over one lap - occasionally he beats him and otherwise he's a couple of tenths off. But the results over the course of a season look totally different to that.

Which brings me to my next question, I've also wondered if your system takes consistency into account? Karthikeyan might on raw pace finish approximately a minute behind Alonso, but IMO he'd have more laps where he wasn't on the pace and Alonso was.

EDIT: I saw your subsequent post about why you don't explain how you derive your ratings and I fully understand - it's why I stated that I wouldn't expect you to reveal it in the first place. I've got a lot of respect for you based on your posts and based on that I don't need you to back up what you're saying with your methods as 'proof'. I also hope you don't think I'm being negative by bringing up questions because that's certainly not my intention. I value your data very highly.

_________________Twitter @Jo_Soucek

Last edited by Jo_ on Wed Jan 16, 2013 5:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

If he wasn't from India and from some EU country, he probably would have had better fair shot at F1 when he was young.Sad fact is, even if you are multi millionaire in India, it is extremely difficult to break into world of competitive open wheel racing. There is no culture, next to nothing racing series, no sponsors until just now, and no interest and encouragement to excel in Motorsport at school / college level. There is not even dedicated pro carting series there. Just some Formula Maruti crap back in 90s which was hardly a stepping stone to get into European racing scene.So for Indian to even break on the scene was huge. He and Karun are very lucky. They both had relatively wealthy family background which enabled them to pursue the career into motorsport. Karun even had a enthusiast racer as father. But even then it is extremely difficult to get into Motorsports at early age here. Things are just starting to change a bit with involvement of FI to promote youngsters to pursue this as career option. But when likes of Narain were in their prime, there was no money coming from this part of the world. No sponsors. Only winnings to be used to fund future and that took its toll on career of drivers like Narain.Money just started to pour from this part of the world 5-6 years back. When guys like Karun and Narain needed support, there was nothing here.

My rating stats are for drivers alone, car-neutral. So if de la Rosa was in the Red Bull, he'd be 1.2% slower than Vettel. That is about 1.2 secs per lap which translates to about 72 secs behind in a 60 lap race, which could be about one lap on some circuits.

I don't consider this slow; PdlR is a very accurate,technically experienced driver, obviously had too much time out of racing in his career.

I think it is too easy for fans to slam anyone who is not absolute top, like Murray or Henman in tennis, or many 'number two' drivers in F1.

The top F1 drivers have always been so very competitive and competent, and they do get the most support from their teams, whatever anyone says; just psychological favouritism is an enormous help and confidence booster. The 'number-twos' are really up against it, as the usual win-rate discrepancies show; and those who get within 0.1 to 0.3 of their 'number-ones' as Webber,Button, Massa, Barrichello,Coulthard, etc have done, all the way back to the fifties drivers Brooks, Castellotti, Gonzalez and Farina, are really very good, and fast.

Back to the OP's topic: according to my ratings Narian in the 2012 Ferrari would finish a race only about one minute behind Alonso. Imagine being that fast against world-class drivers?

So many drivers have been downgraded by off-pace cars; one of the inspirations for doing my ratings system.

The major things that I think separates the best drivers from the 'not quite there' drivers are consistency and adaptability. When someone asks a question such as 'how slow is 'x'' I find it difficult to answer precisely because I don't think that the raw speed is the biggest issue in the equation. You talk about the 'number-twos' and I think they're a good example of it. Webber is almost as quick as Vettel over one lap - occasionally he beats him and otherwise he's a couple of tenths off. But the results over the course of a season look totally different to that.

Which brings me to my next question, I've also wondered if your system takes consistency into account? Karthikeyan might on raw pace finish approximately a minute behind Alonso, but IMO he'd have more laps where he wasn't on the pace and Alonso was.

EDIT: I saw your subsequent post about why you don't explain how you derive your ratings and I fully understand - it's why I stated that I wouldn't expect you to reveal it in the first place. I've got a lot of respect for you based on your posts and based on that I don't need you to back up what you're saying with your methods as 'proof'. I also hope you don't think I'm being negative by bringing up questions because that's certainly not my intention. I value your data very highly.

No problem questioning my system.

Because I do the calcs race-by-race with running time stats which are averaged for the whole season, a driver's consistency is taken into account. You are quite right about the top-raters, they are more consistent. Webber and Button are classic examples of really good drivers, but their team-mates 2010 to 2012 have been more consistent (except Lewis who did not have a good 2011!) as have been all the greatest drivers. Plotting driver performances shows that the best vary less. Raikkonen in 2012 showed what consistency can do, even if imo he was not quite at the ultimate pace of 2012's top three.

One factor I have not taken into account: the differences in same-team cars. Today the cars are virtually equal, but in earlier times team-cars were sometimes less equal. Less money and technology. My system assumes same-cars are equal, but I don't think it has a significant effect; the effect of being 'not a number one' driver is more powerful imo.

My rating stats are for drivers alone, car-neutral. So if de la Rosa was in the Red Bull, he'd be 1.2% slower than Vettel. That is about 1.2 secs per lap which translates to about 72 secs behind in a 60 lap race, which could be about one lap on some circuits.

I don't consider this slow; PdlR is a very accurate,technically experienced driver, obviously had too much time out of racing in his career.

The question I am about to ask is not intended as a criticism, but more so that I can understand the system a little better. Basically I find it a little difficult to believe that de la Rosa could be that much slower than Vettel, unless by your ratings he has deteriorated in the last couple of years.

When de la Rosa returned to racing after a break of several seasons he wound up partnered with Kimi at McLaren in '06. Now in qualifying at least, Pedro was almost always between 0.3 - 0.8 behind Raikkonen, and at Sauber in 2010 he was very close with Kobayashi - in fact while the qualifying battle finished 7 - 7, on average Pedro qualified in higher positions - though he had extremely poor luck in the races.

So taking this into account, how is it that your system finds de la Rosa to be that much slower than Vettel? As I said, it's not a criticism, just a simple question!

Centauri: my 2012 rating for De la Rosa results from my calculations. Is this so slow compared with Vettel, assuming same cars?

Other examples may place PdlR's 2012 performance/rating in perspective: Graham Hill best-rated at 100.5, which means about 30-40 secs behind a top-rater in a race. Exactly where Graham finished behind Lotus team-mate Clark in Jim's last race at Kyalami in 1968. Damon and Jacques Villenueve I have also best-rated at 100.5; it does not seem unreasonable that Michael Schumacher would beat them by about 30 secs in same-cars.

Other WDC's Brabham and Fittipaldi also best rated at 100.5. IN 1973 Emmo finished on average about 25 secs behind Lotus team-mate Peterson. None of these 100.5-rated drivers was slow, and were capable enough to put together WDCs. Considering Pedro''s age and lack of race time, his losing about 70 secs to Vettel (or Alonso, Hamilton) in same-cars does not seem unreasonable.

He has been consistently slower than every driver he has ever been paired with in F1. He has had plenty of races in F1 which gives him plenty of opportunities to prove himself. In my opinion he has acheived absolutely nothing, he did not even deserve the point(s) he scored in Indy 2005, he was way off his team-mate and just had to keep off the wall to not fall asleep at the wheel to avoid the Minardis behind him.

My rating stats are for drivers alone, car-neutral. So if de la Rosa was in the Red Bull, he'd be 1.2% slower than Vettel. That is about 1.2 secs per lap which translates to about 72 secs behind in a 60 lap race, which could be about one lap on some circuits.

Back to the OP's topic: according to my ratings Narian in the 2012 Ferrari would finish a race only about one minute behind Alonso. Imagine being that fast against world-class drivers?

May I ask you a question? I'm always interested in your ratings although I don't understand how to do the caculations.Car neutral: PdlR would finish 72 secs behind Vettel using the same car, NK would finish only about 60 secs behind Alonso.And we know that NK is consistantly behind PdlR using the same car (car neutral). Does it mean that Vettel would finish more than 12 secs in front of Alonso (car neutral)?

Ferdinand: your reasoning is quite right. Those race times I dashed out were to make my rating factors more related to real life. My stats are factors or percentages to within one decimal, but translating to lap times is not as accurate, and depends on circuits, lap lengths, race distances. I just used an average 60-lap race and did not relate those PdlR's and NK's estimated, theoretical race-times accurately.

NK and PdlR's race finishing time-based ratings for 2012 are close, so they would be about the same 'gap' behind the front-runners, which could easily vary around 60 to 70 secs on average per race. Pedro was faster than NK in pre-race times, but I usually give precedence to race-times.

Centauri: my 2012 rating for De la Rosa results from my calculations. Is this so slow compared with Vettel, assuming same cars?

Other examples may place PdlR's 2012 performance/rating in perspective: Graham Hill best-rated at 100.5, which means about 30-40 secs behind a top-rater in a race. Exactly where Graham finished behind Lotus team-mate Clark in Jim's last race at Kyalami in 1968. Damon and Jacques Villenueve I have also best-rated at 100.5; it does not seem unreasonable that Michael Schumacher would beat them by about 30 secs in same-cars.

Other WDC's Brabham and Fittipaldi also best rated at 100.5. IN 1973 Emmo finished on average about 25 secs behind Lotus team-mate Peterson. None of these 100.5-rated drivers was slow, and were capable enough to put together WDCs. Considering Pedro''s age and lack of race time, his losing about 70 secs to Vettel (or Alonso, Hamilton) in same-cars does not seem unreasonable.

Really? 1.2 seconds per lap is huge in F1, particularly in present day. If over a lap de la Rosa was as quick as Kobayashi in 2010 - then is Kobayashi 1.2 seconds per lap slower than Vettel as well according to your ratings? Just trying to understand - most of the stuff I've read about your system I've tended to agree with.

Centauri: my 2012 rating for De la Rosa results from my calculations. Is this so slow compared with Vettel, assuming same cars?

Other examples may place PdlR's 2012 performance/rating in perspective: Graham Hill best-rated at 100.5, which means about 30-40 secs behind a top-rater in a race. Exactly where Graham finished behind Lotus team-mate Clark in Jim's last race at Kyalami in 1968. Damon and Jacques Villenueve I have also best-rated at 100.5; it does not seem unreasonable that Michael Schumacher would beat them by about 30 secs in same-cars.

Other WDC's Brabham and Fittipaldi also best rated at 100.5. IN 1973 Emmo finished on average about 25 secs behind Lotus team-mate Peterson. None of these 100.5-rated drivers was slow, and were capable enough to put together WDCs. Considering Pedro''s age and lack of race time, his losing about 70 secs to Vettel (or Alonso, Hamilton) in same-cars does not seem unreasonable.

Really? 1.2 seconds per lap is huge in F1, particularly in present day. If over a lap de la Rosa was as quick as Kobayashi in 2010 - then is Kobayashi 1.2 seconds per lap slower than Vettel as well according to your ratings? Just trying to understand - most of the stuff I've read about your system I've tended to agree with.

Exactly. Sorry POB but i'm starting to think something does not compute correctly with your assessment of De La Rosa. As pointed out, on a Sauber the guy was on the same pace than Heidfeld and Kobayashi. Kobayashi is a faster qualifier than Sergio Perez who is now on his way to be a top driver. It doesn't sound logical to claim that Pedro De La Rosa would finish ONE LAP DOWN on the same car (!!)

On the other hand, to talk about "car-neutral" times is a bit utopical, since to achieve your potential fastest speed you need to be comfortable with the specific car's handling and/or to have achieved an optimum setup. And this depends directly on the car.

I have enjoyed your web page a lot and i'm looking forward to more articles, but your assessment of De La Rosa on a Red Bull is very, very questionable.

Finally, if Pedro would be THAT slow on a Red Bull, i wonder how slow would Narain be, given that Pedro often outqualified Narain by 0.8 to 1.2 seconds !!

Centauri and Flavio: I agree that in 2010 Pedro at Sauber was faster than Kobayashi and Heidfeld in quali, but he was slower in average race finishing times. That was two seasons ago: Pedro is a lot older, Kamui is still young and imo is even faster now than PdlR. Drivers do not remain static in their performances; and thier relative speeds can vary considerably at times (the top-raters in good teams are very consistent) but eg Hakkinen dropped from being faster than Coulthrad in 2000 to being about 0.5 slower in 2001; Johnny Herbert dropped over 0.5 from 1994 to 1995 when 'mates'with Michael S; Graham Hill wa sso psyched by Rindt at Lotus in 1969 his speed droped by almsot a second a lap from 1968.

Flavio: it is correct to slam my statement 'car-neutral' which is atheoretical concept; and of course a driver has to be in synch with his car. WDC/championship s are actually package championships, not driver or car champoinships. To say Vettel/Clark/Senna were dominant means their package was dominant. Put them in an HRT and they would not be.

It does not seem reasonable that Pedro is staying as fast as he was 2 seasons ago.

Of course my ratings are going to be disagreed with; opinions on driver comparisons can be hazardous to health, putting numbers to them is life threatening! Joking. I really enjoy the Forum discussions and am iinfluenced by posters views. Still finalising 2012, fine-tuning the numbers.